2015 Safest Places in Georgia Study

If you're trying to figure out where to live, one of the single most important factors you'll want to consider is whether or not a location is safe for you and your family. With that in mind, the team at ValuePenguin crunched the numbers in an attempt to determine which areas of Georgia are the safest. Not only do we look at which cities and towns in GA are safest overall, we'll also analyze which places are safest inside of three different population buckets: large, midsize, and small cities. Keep reading our report below to see where your hometown ended up:

The Top 5 Safest Places in Georgia

All five of the top five safest places in Georgia are located in the Atlanta area with four of them being north of the city and one located about 30 minutes south of downtown. Additionally, three of these spots were predictably smaller, while two locations with north of 35,000 residents uncharacteristically made the list as well.

1. Holly Springs, GA

A town of less than 10,000 in northern Georgia, Holly Springs came in as the Safest Place in the entire state in our 2015 study! The 22 police officers in Holly Springs clearly do a great job of keeping crime in check through the area. The lack of property crime in Holly Springs really stands out and is the 2nd lowest in Georgia.

Factor

Value

Population

9,807

Crime Score

273

2. Johns Creek, GA

Known as one of the more affluent communities in all of the country, Johns Creek is also one of the fastest growing metro areas in the US. Situated in northeastern Fulton County along the banks of the Chattahoochee River, Johns Creek has the largest population of the locations inside of our Top 5. Johns Creek seems to have it all, from growing businesses, to reputable public schools, and it's no surprise to the team here at ValuePenguin that it ranks as the 2nd safest place in the state of GA!

Factor

Value

Population

84,093

Crime Score

279

3. Milton, GA

Just north of Alpharetta, the City of Milton has won prestigious awards in the past. Most recently they were recognized as having the highest quality of life in the state of Georgia by the Business Journal. Well, this town of 35,000+ will also be happy to know that their statistics have ranked them as the 3rd safest city in the entire state. They also have the 2nd lowest incidence of violent crime! There were only 22 violent crimes on average per 100,000 residents.

Factor

Value

Population

35,751

Crime Score

312

4. Flowery Branch, GA

A city with a small town appeal that is located only 45 minutes northeast of downtown Atlanta, Flowery Branch is best known for their historic buildings as well as Lake Lanier, where residents and visitors can enjoy water activities year round. For you sports fans, Flowery Branch is also home to the Atlanta Falcon Headquarters! In regards to safety around town, Flowery Branch ranks right towards the top with the 4th best overall crime score in our 2015 safest cities study.

Factor

Value

Population

6,117

Crime Score

321

5. Tyrone, GA

The only one of our Top 5 Places located to the south of Atlanta, Tyrone is a residential community of around 7,000 people. The town was originally settled by Irish farmers who named the area Tyrone because of the similarities they saw in the landscape with County Tyrone back in Ireland. With easy accessibility to downtown ATL and the 5th lowest crime score in the state, it's no wonder so many people call Tyrone home.

Factor

Value

Population

6,997

Crime Score

395

Georgia's Safest Places by Population

Beyond comparing the "overall" safest cities in Georgia, we thought it was appropriate to look at the safest towns based on the number of citizens leaving in each. As such, we have broken out cities and towns into 3 buckets: big cities, midsize cities, and small cities. Below are the 10 safest places in each of their respective categories.

Map of Safest Places in Georgia

Our map will help you visualize where the safer cities in GA are located. For more details on the city name and rank, just hover your mouse over each dot. You can also zoom by double clicking!

Full List of Georgia Cities

Here is a complete listing of GA towns and cities we've included in our 2015 study of the state. The places are listed from safest to least safe based on our scoring methodology. The crime score is stated to the right. Can't find your hometown? There are two possible reasons. First, we've only included cities and towns with a population of over 5,000. If your town is smaller than that it won't be included in the study. Second, the FBI doesn't receive crime data from every location on an annual basis. In the event your town or city didn't report their crime
stats for the 2013 reporting period, they won't be in our study.

Methodology

We sourced our data from 2013 FBI crime statistics by city, which provides the most recent data available. The raw data report included violent crimes (murder/manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) and property crimes (burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson) from all law enforcement agencies that participate in the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program. We standardized the data to reflect violent and property crimes per 100k, to account for population. We then aggregated a "crime score". In order to calculate this, we weighted violent crime at 90% and property crime at 10%; though property crime is far more prevalent, we believe that the violent crime data points are more relevant when calculating the relative safety of these cities. From there we calculated the logarithm of each towns population and multiplied it by the original (non-log) crime score. We then ranked the cities relative to each other based on their crime scores. Additionally, we only looked at cities/towns in Georgia that had populations larger than 5,000.

If you're looking for an alphabetical list of the cities in Georgia and where they stack up in regards to their safety, this table below will help you more easily locate the town you're searching for.

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